How do I log and report my personal psychotherapy hours?

*Under the new experience requirements personal psychotherapy hours cannot be claimed. If you submit your application prior to Jan 1, 2021 and request to be evaluated under the old (pre 2016) requirements you can claim personal psychotherapy hours. If you submit your application on or after Jan 1, 2021 you cannot claim personal psychotherapy hours.

What are personal psychotherapy hours?

Hours you spend in therapy with a licensed therapist (individual, group or family).

Guidelines for personal psychotherapy hours (California MFT)

You can begin to log personal psychotherapy hours from the date your first enroll in your degree program. You are not required to log supervision in a week in order to claim personal psychotherapy hours. The therapist must be licensed (the two year license requirement applicable to supervisors is not applicable to this experience) and you may not receive psychotherapy from your own supervisor. The 6 year rule is applied to these hours; personal psychotherapy hours earned more than 6 years prior to the date you submit your application to the BBS will not count. These hours are optional, but a great way to earn additional hours.

How do I log and report personal psychotherapy hours? (California MFT)

The BBS allows you to claim up to 100 personal psychotherapy hours and they apply a 3:1 multiplier to these hours (each hour logged counts as 3 hours so you can get credit for 300 hours if you log 100). TrackYourHours tracks the personal psychotherapy hours but the software does not produce a formal report because the BBS does not include them on the Experience Verification Form. When you fill out your BBS application you will see a section where you will enter your personal psych hours and dates you received therapy; just enter the hours you see in TrackYourHours. If you want to see a summary of the hours you have entered in TrackYourHours you can run the summary report from the Reports & Forms tab. The last page(s) of the summary report include(s) a detailed listing of your personal psychotherapy hours.

When you enter 1 personal psychotherapy hour into TrackYourHours your recorded total will increase by 1 and your valid total will increase by 3 because the software applies the 3:1 multiplier per the guidelines of the BBS. *The personal psych hours are only counted in your Dashboard Pre 2021 totals. The hours are not counted in your Dashboard 2021 Forward totals.*

You may enter the hours on the exact days they were earned or in blocks. If you enter them in blocks you must ensure that you enter the hours on a day that falls within the appropriate status you were in at the time the hours were earned. For example, if you earned 50 personal psych hours pre-degree and 100 post-degree, you would need to enter the block of 50 hours on a date that is prior to your graduation date and the block of 100 hours on a date that is after your graduation date. This is important because the personal psych hours count toward sub-category and category totals pre- and post-degree.

To enter personal psychotherapy hours into TrackYourHours you just need to click on the “Personal Psych” tab at the top of the screen.

1 The personal psychotherapy hours are entered on the bottom of page one of the Marriage and Family Therapist Examination Eligibility Application